The Best Graphics Cards For Gaming In 2018

The Graphics Card is one of the essential hardware components if you are deciding to build a gaming PC. Even if you are just looking for a boost in gaming performance for your existing PC, a decent GPU is the most effective gaming upgrade to get an increase in the FPS. Due to cryptocurrency mining, prices of GPUs these days are touching the sky and we doubt that it would stop anytime soon as people are still looking for strong GPUs either for the crypto-mining or enhancing their gaming experience in the latest high graphics PC games.

The market is packed up with tons of graphics card options, the process of buying the best graphics card in your budget can get overly complicated considering all the different vendors out there for the same model of the GPU. However, we are not going to get into which vendor’s GPU to buy because even a factory overclocked graphics card with all the fancy fans and stuff is going to get you the almost similar performance to the normal founder’s edition graphics card.

We did some research and tested out different graphics card to help you figure out the best value for your dollar, we came up with 8 best graphics card listed down according to the price point:

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050 Ti

We are going to start up our list with the most budget friendly graphics card that will easily deliver you 60 FPS in most of the recent AAA titles, 1080p Full HD and all the settings maxed out.

The GTX 1050 Ti offers 4 Gigabytes of GDDR5 VRAM with such low power consumption; just install this graphics card on to your existing PC to get an instant boost in gaming performance. This GPU provides good bang for the buck and is the best graphics card you can find in the price range of £130. It also offers decent offers decent clock speeds paired up with 768 Cuda cores and TSMC 16nm for manufacturing the chip. The combination of such features offers great gaming performance in 1080p resolution; you might also be able to run some titles in 1440p resolution at 60 FPS.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 3GB Edition

The Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 is a mid-range graphics card that completely beats AMD’s alternatives in the same price point. It offers brilliant 1080p performance and you will easily be able to play all the recent titles even in 1440p resolution at 60 FPS. You might also be able to play some lightweight games at 4K resolution with few settings turned down.

Nvidia GeForce also offers a bit of overclocking if you are into that kind of stuff to get a little more boost in FPS. The memory is slightly less, but you should not worry about that as it still delivers excellent performance. Design wise this graphics card is really compact, helping you build a compact gaming rig, proving itself as the absolute best choice for your PC gaming world.

AMD Radeon RX 570

If you have a slightly higher budget then AMD RX 570 might be perfect for you. It is a minor upgrade to the RX 470 which was released back in 2016. The higher clock speed boosts up the entire performance of this GPU.

In the RX 570, You will easily be able to get 90+ FPS in most of the AAA titles, that too, in Full HD or QHD resolution. The power consumption is also low so you will not have to worry if you have a low watt power supply. It comes in 8GB and 4GB variant, however, we would recommend to pick up the higher memory variant as the two are priced very closely.

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AMD Radeon RX 580

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is a Mid-range but quality offer of the company. Based on the Polaris architecture, it offers great performance and is in many ways similar to its predecessor the RX 480. It has 232mm square dies, 36 compute units, 144 texture units, 2,304 stream processors, and 256-bit memory bandwidth. The combination of these specs never fails to provide an excellent gaming experience even at high resolutions.

The higher 1,257MHz clock speed and 6.17 teraflops paired up with 8 Gigs of VRAM will easily allow the GPU to handle any graphics intensive task you throw at it. The cost of RX580 is around £350 for the 8GB variant.

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Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070

The GTX 1070 is another highly efficient GPU that strikes a perfect balance between high performance and reasonable price. It is slightly less powerful than the GTX 1080 as it only GDDR5, not GDDR5X.

The GTX 1070 comes with 8 Gigabytes of memory and Nvidia’s Pascal architecture which consumes low power and delivers excellent gaming performance. You will easily be able to pay high-end games at a 90+ FPS on ultra setting and QHD resolution. 4K gaming is also possible at a decent FPS. This graphics card offers probably the best price to performance ratio if you are willing to spend a little more cash.

AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB

The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB is a competitor to the Nvidia GTX 1070. It is a worthy competitor but consumes slightly more power than the GTX 1070. This enthusiast level graphics card offers smooth performance in all the graphics-intensive tasks and games.

In RX Vega 56, You will have no trouble in running the AAA titles at maxed out settings on QHD resolution at 60+ FPS. It costs less than the GTX 1070 but offers almost similar performance. The only down point is its slightly higher power consumption which shouldn’t be a problem if you have a decent power supply.

AMD Radeon RX Vega 64

This AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 is the most powerful gaming GPU by AMD as it offers all the top of the line specs which puts it in direct competition with the Nvidia GTX 1080. It has all the brute computing power to handle physics-heavy VR gaming now and into the future.

The powerful 4096 stream processor is paired up with 8 Gigs of HBM2 memory and 256 texture units. The performance is almost similar to the GTX 1080 but it is much cheaper. The only down point of the Vega series compared to Nvidia’s GPUs is the high power consumption.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050

Similar to GTX 1050 Ti, this one is also budget friendly, providing a decent performance for gaming. It is an entry-level gaming GPU which is perfect if you want to play lightweight games like CS GO, League of legends, Rocket League etc; you will easily get 90+ FPS in these games. You can also play recent AAA titles at a decent frame rate if you turn down the resolution and some graphics options.

It is also a compact graphics card which is good for those who don’t have enough space in their PC case. The power consumption is also low and it does not require any additional power connections, however, some overclocked models of the GTX 1050 require a 6 pin connector.

The Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050 also has High Dynamic Range Video support which is a good option available if you prospect for home-theatre PCs. This GPU is a great entry-level choice, but I would still recommend you to get the GTX 1050 Ti to get more boost in performance.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080

The Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 delivers some serious gaming performance, it is a high-end graphics card which is the best option after the GTX 1080 Ti. This card used to offer great price to performance ratio but huge demand in the market has put prices on a rollercoaster ride.

This graphics card is still the cheapest option for smooth 4K gaming as you will easily be able to play all the recent games at a decent frame rate at this resolution. This is also a great option if you want to get into Virtual Reality. You get 8 Gigabytes of GDDR5X memory which is pretty solid.

There is a “Gaming Mode” too which boosts top clock speeds from 1733MHz to 1898MHz. The fastest setting which is the “OC Mode” pushes the clock speeds further to 1936MHz. Overall this is a great card if you want to do some serious gaming. AMD’s RX Vega 64 looks like it could be a solid rival to this card but it consumes a lot more power and is a bit more pricey too.

Nvidia Zotac Geforce GTX 1080 Ti Mini

This card is the best option if you are building a compact powerful gaming PC like micro ATX or a mini ITX. You will find almost all the features of a full sized GTX 1080 Ti like the 11 Gigabytes GDDR5X memory. It is the smallest of its kind which will offer smooth 4K performance at max settings.

The only down points of this card are the heftier price tag and that it gets loud and really hot. It is still the best option if you want to get ultimate gaming experience in a compact gaming rig.

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti

And If it’s about the most powerful GPU, regardless of the price tag, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti with 11 Gigs of GDDR5X VRAM is the last but the best one on our list. It offers smooth 4K gaming performance even at ultra settings; you can also game at 5K resolution on this beast.

This graphics card is ready for anything, it provides unbeatable performance and is the best graphics card in competition. The improved Pascal architecture adds 25 percent more memory, GDDR5X clocked at 10 GT/s means the 484GB/s of actual memory bandwidth in practice works like 580 GB/s, and the tiled rendering yields around 726GB/s (under the right workloads).

With all these strong specs, this GPU is a complete package with excellent efficiency and great new features. It is undoubtedly the best high-end graphics card that you can get under £1000.

So this was our list of the best graphics cards that you can get your hands on for an ultimate gaming experience. If you know any other better options, make sure to tell us about it in the comments section below.

12 Answers

There is no point in mentioning graphics cards right now as digital currency miners have created a shortage and driven up prices to the point of them being unaffordable now. Your only way to go unless you are filthy rich, is to buy a prebuilt system from a large vendor like DELL who can buy much cheaper than the consumer at this point.

Remember that ANYTIME you hear someone talk about bitcoin in a good way. Dont bite your tongue, dont remain silent for the sake of politeness. Speak up, shame them, insult them, berate them. Make them afraid to mention bitcoin in public out of fear of being ridiculed. Like how people need to do with trumpeters.

Except video cards aren’t used to mine Bitcoin anymore. Other alt-coins, sure, but not Bitcoin. So when showing your ignorance on a topic maybe you should be the one who is shamed, insulted, and berated?

Most people who do not mine cryptocurrency use bitcoin as a generic reference to refer to ANY cryptocurrency since people who don’t mine cryptocurrency aren’t “in the know” of what the current offerings are any particular day of the week, and there are dozens of them. The fact of the matter is, people still use GPUs to mine SEVERAL cryptocurrencies and the point being made by most people (that crypto miners are creating a shortage of graphics cards normally used by gamers is STILL a problem). You knew that though and just wanted to be pedantic, so congrats I guess?

I agree with d3bug on this one. There are few if any price and supply controls on graphics cards in place at present, the prices for even a card like the 1060 3GB are ridiculous- and the links provided on this page prove it, as not one card featured is anywhere near MSRP. Every card featured is practically double that, including the 1050 featured. The only viable option for reasonably priced GPUs right now is either to buy a prebuilt system or to opt for a an eGPU kit like the Aorus Gaming Box. It is in the author’s best interest to edit the article to reflect present trends, and to dispense with the notion that any of the cards featured have discounts, which is misleading.

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